Mobile communications have become exceedingly commonplace in recent years. Those taking advantage of such systems presently have a multiplicity of choices regarding the type of terminal unit to be employed. For example, consumers may choose from portable cellular telephones, paging receivers, and even combinations of the two. With regard to paging receivers, one can opt from among pagers with diverse alerting signals such as audible, visual, and tactile (i.e., vibratory).
Furthermore, the prior art discloses pagers with alerting signals which selectively or automatically vary in type or intensity. To demonstrate, U.S. Pat. No. 4,918,438 to Yamasaki discloses a pager having the ability to alternate automatically between tactile annunciation and audible annunciation. Additionally, U.S. Pat. No. 5,293,161 to MacDonald et al. presents a pager which permits a user to vary selectively the vibrating pager's frequency of vibration. As the above is intended to make clear, even a cursory review of the prior art reveals that many inventive terminal units of mobile communications systems are known to the art.
Notwithstanding the unchallenged usefulness of the inventions specified and alluded to above and herein, an invention presenting previously-unexploited uses of mobile communications technology undoubtedly would represent a marked advance in the art.